This is a rough first draft of a longer story that’s been poking at me for about half a year now. It started out as a post-apocalyptic story (as if there aren’t enough of those); but the background is not really that important: I just want to have a go at writing about a phobic fear of insects and things living inside the earth. I’ll probably drop the post-apocalyptic thing anyway: plants and ants can be scary enough in themselves, and contriving mutated species just seems like a cheap cop-out.

I picture the I character as a slightly disturbed young teenager boy with scattered scraps and bits of education. I’ve tried to make it apparent that the world around him is partly made up of his own imagination. 

[Introduction]

I discovered a dead house today. It was nearly
completely gone. Most of the walls were broken, with fissures running up and
down like a panicking chicken. There were no windows anymore — just the glass
was left, in bits and pieces and glistening dust on the floor, and I hurt my
left foot in that dust. It just goes to show you that shining things can be dangerous.

The house has a special path with square stones
leading up to it, but there’s so much grass and weeds growing in between that
most of the stones have been dislodged: I nearly broke my ankle when I wasn’t
paying attention to where I put my feet. The path leads into the forest, and if
I’m right and if it doesn’t do something unexpected it leads to the broken road
that becomes a fixed road that leads into the crumbling city a couple of miles
away.

The place felt strange, and scary too, but in a good
way. I was stretching and curling my fingers when I first saw the dead house,
and I put a large red X on the map in my head. It’s an obvious reference point:
I think I’ll use it situate other landmarks in this area around it.

But the dead house came only after the battle. That
took place a bit down and to the left from the house.

[Battle scene: too long]

I had decided to scout the forest on the other side of
the brook today, to see whether I could see my way clear to burning a wasp nest
to hell. The buggers had been ever more annoying over the last few months, and
I was confident that none of their hideouts were left on our side of the brook.
I wasn’t sure if I could deal with an angry swarm or even if I was able to burn
their nest all by myself. All I really wanted to do was locate them and get
help, cause the wasps make me tense and scared and sometimes they keep me from
sleeping. Still, I carried a backpack with a lighter that still sparked, some oil
and a bottle of petrol, just in case of emergency.

There is a little stone bridge, a little out of the
way of my usual roaming area. It is broken in two places, but the gaps can
easily be jumped.

I immediately decided that this side of the brook was much
wilder and probably much more dangerous, too. The sheer amount of wasps that
had been coming from this side recently had told me as much. Nobody ever came
here: the forest floor was thick with dead leaves, thorny bramble bushes and
dry twigs and rotting branches. No-one had bothered to clear up this area: there
were low bushes and young trees everywhere. I imagined them surging upwards,
eager for the sun on their leaves, thrusting out leaf-rich branches with which
to elbow their competitors out of the sun. Even the light seemed darker here
than on our side of the brook. I was tense with summer heat and apprehension:
anything could be lurking under that chaotic carpet. From time to time I
stopped, straining to hear the distinct sound of wasp-buzzing that you only
hear when they’re upon you.

The first thing I came across, though, was a very
pleasant surprise indeed: an enormous patch of lush green ferns, thickly
filling up a small clearing and swaying noisily in the wind. Those at front
were about as tall as I was; the ones at the back stood at least ten feet high.
I couldn’t believe my luck: such a hunting ground I hadn’t seen in oh — at
least six months, having destroyed all of them at the other side of the brook.

I
didn’t have time to take up the best position, over at a patch of bramble
bushes to my left. I’d been too careless in approaching and doubtlessly they’d
heard me singing away along with the birds. They were lush and green, and they
were waiting for me, at least thirty lines deep. Part of me thought it was a
pity: it’d be a long time before the ferns would be able to grow a host this
mighty, but there was no time for reflection. I loosened the throwing iron in
my belt, L-shaped and rust-free, and
levered my stick.
I shouted my most powerful war cry at them, and charged. I feigned
to the left and just when they thought I was going to
swivel to the right, I jumped the first line, using my stick for extra
leverage, and landed in their midst, my iron a swooshing arc that drew their
attention away from the stick coming in low from the right. I remember I
swivelled to rebuff the first rank who were trying to turn around, then swung
blindly back again with the iron to cover my briefly unprotected back. After
that, I rolled and cut, stabbed and feinted, and brought the stick and Iron
straight down upon their charging ranks, screaming in righteous battle-fury. In
the end there were two pockets of resistance left, on opposite sides of the
battlefield.

I
observed them for a brief while, sweat rolling down my back, trying to
alternate my breathing through nose and mouth. This was not going to be easy.
Some of the most formidable ferns I had seen in ages were left standing, the mightiest
easily standing ten feet tall. I would have to be careful not to be trapped
under their falling corpses. While I was planning my final ruse, I dashed
across the field and finished off their wounded, so that no more harm could be
expected from them. The tea-like scent of their death hung heavily in the air; the
fist carrion flies came buzzing at the edge of the clearing. There were no
wasps there, I noticed, which was a good thing. I wanted to be able to focus on
the battle at hand.

Finally
I moved to a position roughly halfway between the two groups. My left hand held
the throwing iron, my right swayed my battle-stick back and forth. They were
expecting me to throw the Iron and attack with the stick — they’d seen me doing
that, hadn’t they? If they were suspecting a ruse, they might expect me to
sling it in the opposite direction, to the right. Before I let them come to
that conclusion, I jumped high, raising my left hand as if to throw right, then
slung my stick left. I didn’t take the time to look, but I rolled to the right,
and almost at the same time I heard the stick crashing into the stems, I came
up, swinging the Iron in a lightning-fast underhand arc. Two corpses flew up
into the air, and I pressed on, jabbing the shortest end horizontally into
their stems to weaken their defence before I brought twisted and swung wide,
unrooting several more. Their right flank was now broken, and after a smart
lunge to the left, I was battering down their centre. I brought down the
tallest warriors with two powerful strikes each, the first to open up their
wood-like stem, the second, carefully aimed at precisely the same spot, to crush
the inside. I even managed to finish off a couple of lesser ferns while rolling
to avoid the tumbling corpses.

I
left none standing before I turned and rushed the other pocket. The Iron’s
range, when used in hand-to-hand combat, is limited, but I switched hands so
often and so fast they never knew what direction I was going to pummel them
from.

These
last few ferns put up an admirable resistance. They must have realised today
was not my day to die, but they kept going anyway. Their fierce counterattack
prevented me from reclaiming my stick for a while; even some of their fallen,
in their dying spasms, had wrapped themselves around it. That’s just to show
you how fierce they are. I admired their bravery.

It
was at this moment that a small part of my mind that was not focussed on war
realised that this was probably how the Achaean heroes must have felt while
attempting to reclaim Patroklos’ corpse and armour. It was a most satisfying
last stand, but when I finally managed to grab hold of my stick and drew it
forcefully from their hold, the battle was over, and they knew it.

I
made sure to leave one of the tallest warriors standing. When I slew the second
to last, I quickly rolled out of range and gestured I wanted to end the
slaughter. My breath came heavy, and I felt my heart going kadunk kadunk in my
arms. It took me a while before I could address the lone fern properly.

‘You
and your kind have fought well,’ I shouted and raised my weapons in
warrior-greeting; they were stained green with fern-juices. ‘I salute you. I
will save you, so you can raise a funeral pyre for your dead. Until we meet
again, brave fern!’

With a last glance at the lone warrior, I trudged
across the field of dead and entered into the forest, feeling deeply satisfied:
I knew from experience that if I left some ferns alive, their patch would repopulate
much sooner.

[The meadow — needs more description]

To the left the light seemed clearer and the trees
less dense, so I decided to explore that side first. I carefully made my way
through low bushes and the chaotic forest floor until the trees grew thin and I
looked out upon a grassy meadow. To the left I could see the brook — or at
least the bulge of darker grass running along it. To the right, the forest made
a broad sweep back to the pond. Between here and the opposite row of trees
there was nothing but grass and moss and little white flowers. I could also see
mole heaps, black and naked bulges of dark earth that dotted the grass. This
side of the brook held so many challenges, I thought. I shouldn’t come here too
often, only as a treat.

I briefly debated whether or not I should leave the
mole heaps until another time but I simply knew that I’d be unable to sleep
tonight, knowing there were so many of them, so I decided to move in and stamp
them back into the depths from where they had come.

Halfway down the meadow I could see a large,
straight-edged shape looming in the forest. Its features were far too regular
to be natural — so it must be a house or a structure of some kind. Of course I
wanted to see the house — such a place would offer too many places for wasps to
make their nests than I could easily count. Still: I had only destroyed a few
of the mole heaps and there were just too many left to my liking. And wasn’t I
using up the wonders on this side of the brook awfully fast? My curiosity took
the better of me and I settled on a compromise: I’d cautiously zigzag between
mole heaps on my way towards the building. It would give me the opportunity to
study it from several angles.

Pretty soon it was obvious to me that the house had
once stood in the middle of a garden, but that it was quite dead and deserted
now. No doubt, the forest first reclaimed the tamed patch of vegetables and
then moved into the house. That was why we kept our fields and our houses
separated. I could see various kind of bushes and leathery weeds growing out of
the windows. It appeared that some sections had been occupied by the ferns.
Before attacking them (I had only just recovered from the fiercest battle I’d
indulged in in at least a few months) I decided I’d spend today watching and
doing some preliminary exploring.

[The house]

I don’t think anyone knows of the house: it had a path
of its own with square stones, but it was practically covered with grass and
little white flowers whose name I do not know but who look pretty and harmless.
Perhaps it is because the forest is so angry with the house. All around it, the
forest was all dark, but the trees and brown leaves and rotten branches were calm.
But on the inside of the house it’s violent and green and more green and many
plants growing from carpets. Even the paper on the walls was green, but many
different kinds, and it was brown and yellow and rust, too, them too in many
kinds. I made up a story in which the green shapes were fencing with the yellow
ones, and they were wearing rusty blindfolds, but right before the yellow lord
was going to win I heard the wind whistle in the fissures in the wall, so I
started making up a song. I forgot how it went, but I remember it was really
pretty.

I tried going up the stairs, too, but they moaned as
if their tummy seriously hurt, and I quickly jumped off. I apologised to the
house and walked carefully after that. Perhaps if I had fallen through I might
have ended up inside the ground, between the white and hairy roots and the ant
army and I didn’t want that. I know all about the ants, because daddy told me
about them all the time (he called them the rulers of this world, and I’ve been
weary of their might ever since he brought his nose up to mine and told me to
keep away from them). I also know about what plants look like below the ground,
because I grow some in daddy’s old beer glasses. They look like a blind
creature’s claws, the way they grope and spread out, and they frighten me, but
I can’t bring myself to throw them away. I just keep them in the big room, the
one that the sun shines in mostly and try not to think of them at night. Sometimes
I can’t fall asleep because I can sense them sensing me, trying to reach out to
my bed. I know that they can’t get out and that knowledge makes me feel safe
and sleepy again. I don’t want to think about their comrades in the forest:
they might be calling out to them.

Thinking about the ants made me feel hungry again and
I left. I’d go back tomorrow and establish a firmer camp.